AP article crediting Obama for economy was a stretch: Neil Cavuto

FBN’s Neil Cavuto discusses an article written by the Associated Press – “Trump claims credit for what is still mostly Obama’s economy” -- and explains why Trump deserves some credit for the record-high markets.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press published an article which questioned whether President Donald Trump should really take credit for the bullish economy.

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FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto said an argument could be made that Obama was responsible for the current state of the economy, but believes President Trump played a role in it as well.

“Shortly after Barack Obama took office, I could give the benefit of the doubt, that is fair to say that the length of this bull market and a big chunk of it was under the former president’s leadership. But, to not give the latest president any credit for anything that has happened the last year, it did seem like a bit of a stretch,” Cavuto said.

While under Trump, the U.S. economy added 2 million jobs in 2017, and the president also passed a massive tax reform bill, which some financial experts believe will help add even more jobs to the economy. On Wednesday, tech giant Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced that it plans to contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy and create 20,000 new jobs.

However, the AP article titled, “Trump claims credit for what is still mostly Obama’s economy,” goes on to say that wage and hiring growth has slowed since Obama’s last year in office. Though it noted that consumers and businesses are optimistic, their spending has yet to “meaningfully” progress higher.

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“So for Barack Obama, you could make the argument that after a meltdown, we were due to go up and the Federal Reserve helped out keeping interest rates at zero. You can get in all the nuance you want, but it did happen under his watch, credit Barack Obama,” Cavuto said.

Trump received high marks for his economy policy, although he received lower marks on tax policy, according to a recent CBS poll.